Orhan Pamuk: I Did Not Use Term “Genocide”

Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk abandoned his statements characterizing the carnages of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 as Genocide. Pamuk said his words were wrongly interpreted. “I did not use term “genocide” and I announced the number of victims spontaneously,” he stated. To note, the court session on Orhan Pamuk’s case is to be held late this year. To remind, February 2005 during an interview with a Swiss newspaper Pamuk stated that “1 million Armenians and 30 thousand Kurds were slaughtered in Turkey.” Then he was threatened with persecution and even savage punishment. It should be also noted that the Istanbul court recently sentenced editor-in-Chief of Akos newspaper Hrant Dink to 6 months of conditional imprisonment for “outraging national identity of Turks.” Last year Dink called upon Armenians not to poison their blood with hatred towards Turks. In Dink’s opinion, the court interpreted his words as “poisonous blood of Turks”. Dink is going to appeal the verdict and in case of failure to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, reported IA Regnum.